Subway shocker: A cheaper tunnel under the Hudson

Amanda Brown/The Star-LedgerThe multi-billion Hudson River train tunnel construction site sits empty. Now, New York City is looking at extending one of its subway lines into New Jersey.

The news that New York City is interested in building a subway tunnel under the Hudson River is both welcome and shocking.

Right now, this idea is nothing more than a four-page memo from Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office that resurrects a strategy discarded long ago. There is no money set aside for it, no study of the engineering or environmental impacts and no coalition fighting for needed aid from Washington. This could easily be a mirage.

But rub your eyes and take a look. At about half the cost of the Access to the Region’s Core rail tunnel that Gov. Chris Christie killed, this plan proposes to deliver as many commuters, or more, to good jobs in Manhattan.

New Jersey needs that connection more than New York City does. More than 250,000 New Jerseyans commute every day to jobs that pay 60 percent more, on average, than jobs here. This is a pillar of this state’s prosperity. Without a new tunnel, it will grind to a halt, and the new jobs will go to commuters from New York and Connecticut.

What’s shocking is that this was not a larger part of the conversation all along. If it proves viable, this could be the Plan B that Christie never proposed after walking away from the ARC tunnel. Lucky thing that at least New York City hasn’t given up.

The subway plan, unlike the New Jersey plan, would force commuters to switch at Secaucus. But it would give riders the ability to go straight to Grand Central Station, which the ARC plan did not. If it really does cost half as much, that’s an easy trade-off to accept.

Can this really work? At this stage, who knows? But let’s kick the tires and find out.